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| St. Sergius of Radonezh by Mikhail Nesterov ~ 1890's |
I was introduced to this painting of St. Sergius while visiting the State Museum at St. Petersburg in 1996. Here we see the holy saint at the top of a rise in late autumn. Look deeply and notice his monastery in the distance in the upper left hand corner. Perhaps the hills remind us of that hill country the pregnant Mary traveled to visit her elder cousin Elizabeth: God overcoming all the obstacles history placed to keep God from finding us in Christ. Here is a bio-paragraph about St. Sergius from the Anglican book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.
At the age of twenty, Sergius and his brother began a life of seclusion in a nearby forest, from which developed the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, a center of revival of Russian Christianity. There Sergius remained for the rest of his life, refusing higher advancement.
Sergius was simple and gentle in nature, mystical in temperament, and eager to ensure that his monks should serve the needs of their neighbors. He was able to inspire intense devotion to the faith. He died in 1392, and pilgrims still visit his shrine at the monastery of Zagorsk, which he founded in 1340. His feast day on the Russian calendar is September 25.
In the painting we see the road leading from the monastery to the hilltop - we are all pilgrims on a spiritual path to find God who has found us long before. Sergius' left hand is placed over his heart, "Blessed are the clean of heart," Jesus teaches. The saint carries his prayer beads as well, to keep his prayer awake and focused. In his right hand he carries his abbot's staff, rather like a shepherd's crook. In the foreground there is a little conifer tree, an evergreen: That my prayer, like Sergius' prayer, might be ever-green, even through the personal times I might call dry or like a winter.
Wearing the tree bark shoes of a poor man, Sergius has stopped along the way making eye contact with each of us. He invites us to pay attention to the monk who is within each of us: to simplicity, silence, detachment, and the inner still-place where God can be detected. One abbot says: "The monk, standing outside his monastery, can tell what time it is by listening to the night insects."
When the monk is having his silent breakfast, he isn't thinking about how to solve the monastery's money problems, or how to get foolish brother so-and-so to see things his way, he's just enjoying his tea and oatmeal. If he doesn't come to that attentive stillness, he won't endure.
We might spend some time with the painting of Sergius - long enough for him to speak a word of encouragement to us before he walks on. And below is a prayer from Lesser Feasts and Fasts, beautifully summarizing the essential theme of the saint's life, which we might make our own.
We might spend some time with the painting of Sergius - long enough for him to speak a word of encouragement to us before he walks on. And below is a prayer from Lesser Feasts and Fasts, beautifully summarizing the essential theme of the saint's life, which we might make our own.
O God,
by whose grace your servant Sergius of Moscow,
kindled with the flame of your love,
became a burning and a shining light in your Church:
Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline,
and walk before you as children of light;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
